The Naming of the Birds, page 13
“Ah,” said Gideon, who might once have been thoroughly mystified. He coughed discreetly, feeling pleased with his astuteness. “An establishment for the procurement of young women.”
Cutter turned and fixed him with a bleak look. “Young boys, Bliss. That’s the gentlemanly part.”
“Ah, indeed,” said Gideon, but before he could reconfigure his expression the inspector sprang from his seat again. His agitation now seemed held in check, and as he jerked his head towards the kerb, he made a slowing motion with the flat of his hand. When the labouring horse had been soothed to a halt, he gave a grudging nod.
“That’ll do,” he said to the driver. “Do not mind my antics earlier, will you? I am an unruly passenger at times, but there was nothing in it. You are a gem of a fellow, really, and all the better for saying precious little. Keep your station now, just as we agreed. Bliss, shake a leg there.”
The inspector had skipped lightly to the footway, and already he was striding away down Bedford Street. The bright afternoon was yielding to a chilly and sulphurous dusk, and a lamplighter had mounted his ladder outside a coachmakers’ yard. The light flared about his hunched shoulders, quick and lemony at first, then sputtering to a feeble apricot. Coal smuts and kitchen smoke lazed about his haloed form. The evening smelled of kerosene and burnt sugar.
There were crowds that might have been late or early, and Gideon lost sight of Cutter almost at once. He fumbled through the press of bodies, aware of rough and furtive touches. He scented jasmine oil and untended flesh. He heard laboured breathing, skittish laughter, the drawl and scritch of a gramophone. Under an awning he was wrenched aside, and in an unlit doorway, broad hands braced his shoulders. Clean hands. The inspector silenced him with a look.
“I cannot say much,” he said, “so listen to what I do say.”
Gideon nodded.
“You know the Strand at this hour,” the inspector said. “Not too lively yet, but getting there. And you know the crowds here. Some respectable, for the matinees and what have you, but mostly otherwise. Keep your wits about you, such as they are. As for the evening’s entertainment, well—have you eaten yet?”
Gideon hesitated, momentarily perplexed. “Miss Hillingdon had prepared a light picnic lunch, but—” He noted the inspector’s dismal expression. “No, sir. Almost nothing.”
Cutter pursed his lips. “Just as well. Whatever this is, it won’t be pretty. I have people out now. Errand boys, you might say, with ways of getting word to me. It was the proprietress of this place who found him, a Mrs. Finucane. Seen a bit of the world, this Mrs. Finucane has. Or she thought she had, before today. No name for the fellow yet, but he was something in the Home Office once. No doubt he was more besides. He was something to someone, anyway. Special treatment, by the sound of it.”
“To someone?” But Gideon was rebuking himself before he had said the words.
“Have a guess.”
It was a moment before Gideon took his meaning. “The murderer, sir?”
“Sing it out again, why don’t you? They didn’t hear you in Clerkenwell. Anything else? Make it quick, mind.”
It was hardly the most pressing question, but perhaps it would show that he was paying attention. “Was that not Milo’s driver, sir? Will Milo himself be joining us?”
Something near to amusement stirred in the inspector’s face. “Joining us? He has hardly left our side these last three days. Now, we must get on. This fellow won’t be getting any fresher, and I have put off my own dinner. Let’s see if we can work up an appetite.”
THE DAMASK WAS an establishment that might easily have gone unnoticed. Opposite the rear of the Adelphi Theatre, the inspector drew up by a costumier’s shop and rapped on a door of undistinguished appearance. A small hatch was drawn back, then smartly clapped shut again. They heard discreet muttering from within, and a fussing over chains and locks.
The young man who opened the door was pale and thin. He seemed exhausted by the effort and disappointed by the results. He scanned the crowd behind them, then lifted his chin, edging aside to let them pass. The vestibule they entered was small but richly decorated. The walls were hung with silk, pale jade and patterned with bamboo. A polished side table was crowded with exotic ornaments. A fan of peacock feathers, a brass elephant with sapphire eyes, a clockwork carousel. Roses and peonies spilled from a vast Chinese vase, lavish but unreal. Gideon had known a flower maker once. He thought of her vanished face, her fondness for sweet peas.
“They’re silk,” said the thin young man, noting his interest. “Them flowers, I mean. By Monsieur Fouchier.”
“We’ll be sure to look him up,” said the inspector. “And you are?”
“They call me Lysander,” said the young man.
“Not your name here, you painted stick of misery. Your real name.”
“She made a list.” The youth twitched a shoulder towards the stairs, indicating someone up above. “Said you’d be asking.”
“Well, don’t stir from this place before I do,” said Cutter. “Were you here when it happened?”
He nodded warily, clutching his arms about his narrow frame.
“See the punter go in?”
Another wincing nod.
“See anyone else go in?”
The young man shook his head, this time with some vehemence.
“See or hear anything else?”
Lysander ventured something approaching a sneer. “We never do. Not supposed to.”
Cutter took a slow step towards him. “Today is different. Today, there’s only one thing you’re not supposed to do, and that’s disappoint me. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”
“No, guv,” the young man said, then shuddered at some recollection. “But I didn’t, I swear. Not until Mel woke up. Till she started screaming.”
The inspector thumbed his jaw, his expression pained. “Mel?”
“Mélisande. Stage name’s all I know. Madam’s made a list, like I said.”
“She’s not the only one,” Cutter murmured, casting a dour look about the opulent vestibule. The thin young man made a weary show of puzzlement, at which the inspector rolled his eyes. “Just show us up, will you. You can faint when we’re finished.”
UPSTAIRS, THEY WERE LED into what Lysander called the salon. It was a lounge of sorts, and even more richly furnished than the entrance hall, but it was a room meant to be couched in shadow and flattered by spreading chandeliers. Its thick velvet drapes were now drawn back and the ebbing light seeped from mirrors rimed with dust, over table linen fretted by years of boiling. On a low stage in one corner, a cheval glass leaned in its frame, staring at nothing. A discarded stocking trailed from an empty chair.
Three more pallid young men were gathered around the table nearest the stage, two in vestigial evening wear and the last wearing what seemed to be a wine-stained chemise. They looked up sullenly but made no move to rise. One of them gave a protracted sigh, then reached behind his chair and tugged on a tasselled cord.
“Rung for her,” he said. “Make yourselves at home, do.”
“Oh, do,” said the youth in the chemise. “Welcome to the Damask. Let it enchant and enfold you. Ain’t that what we say, Jules? Even when we’ve been kept on half the day, not even a cup of beef tea. Let it enchant and enfold you, only do try not to shoot your muck on the velvet. Half the day, after a night like that. You’re lucky there ain’t five fucking bodies.”
“Shut it, can’t you. Bad enough without you giving lip to the charpers.”
“Be lucky for them if they did find my body, mind you. Only way they could afford it, unless I was feeling free. Which I might be for this nice cut of white meat.” This last was addressed to Gideon, though he had only an approximate sense of its import. “What’s your name, chicken? You going to show us your truncheon?”
Before Gideon was obliged to answer, a stout woman with a crimped expression emerged from a curtained-off annex. She wore a heavy black shawl over her cerise gown, perhaps to mark her patron’s passing, and she carried what appeared to be a sceptre. She silenced the young men by rapping it three times against the floor.
“What did I fucking tell you?” Mrs. Finucane demanded. “I told you to keep your painted traps shut until I say different. You heard me say different yet?”
The young men fixed their gazes on the tablecloth.
“That’s right, you ain’t. You want to earn with them tongues again, you keep them in your fucking gobs. Now.” She turned to the inspector. “You’re him, are you? Heard you might play nice if we’re accommodating, so here I am, being accommodating. The whole lot’s your oyster, within reason. I want to put a smile on your face, but not as much as I want to keep my wicks lit. How do we set about that, then?”
Mrs. Finucane’s tone struck Gideon as startlingly presumptuous, but the inspector did not seem perturbed. “Well,” he said, “putting a smile on my face would be a high bar to reach, but you might help me keep my temper. As for keeping your wicks lit, all I can tell you is that I am not like some. As long as these fine fellows are all of age, it makes no odds to me how they earn their keep.”
“Ain’t the boys I’m worried about,” said Mrs. Finucane. “Not these here, anyway, since they can’t mind their manners. It’s them as comes here to get their collars starched. They’re a certain sort, as I expect you know. Not just quality. People who know people. People who ain’t keen on seeing themselves in the picture papers.”
“Again, I am not like some,” said Cutter. “I don’t give a damn where Lord So-and-So gets his silver polished, and I tell no tales to those who do. What I do give a damn about is the truth of what happened here, and I mean to know every jot of it. So, here is how we set about it. First, where is the fellow who was in the room, this Mel?”
Mrs. Finucane jerked her sceptre at the curtain. “Back there, having a lie-down. And you won’t get far calling Mel a fellow. I got the proper name wrote down, but it ain’t stage with this one. It’s through and through. Had a mind you’d want her kept separate.”
“That’s what I like to hear. And I will call her the princess consort as long as she gives me straight answers. We’ll have a word with her first, and if she is forthcoming, we will let her go. She won’t be going home, mind. She’ll be boarding with you.”
“Come again?” Mrs. Finucane’s face was strained.
“You have your own lodgings somewhere out of the way, I’m sure. Ladies in your line generally do. I don’t want to know where. Keep her there for a few days. Call it a special favour.”
“How many days?” Mrs. Finucane said sharply. “She gets asked for special. She’s worth a bob.”
“She’ll be asked for now, right enough. Make up whatever story you like, just keep her out of harm’s way for a bit. Think of it as protecting your investment. After we talk to her, we’ll want a look at the scene. We’ll want the dead man’s name and everything else you and your boys might know about him. Everything, do you hear me. If he had a name he liked to call them, write it down. If he preferred pink drawers to white, write it down. Then write down an account of everything that happened last night. It might turn out to be the most tedious story ever set to paper, God help us, but it will begin when you opened your doors yesterday evening and it will tell the tale of every single soul who came and went, accurate to the hour and the minute.”
Mrs. Finucane compressed a cigarette between her lips. “Anything else?”
“There is, yes. You needn’t confine yourself to last night. If you took on a new kitchen porter last week, I want to know of it. If a cat wandered into your yard that was not familiar, I want a count of its paws and the colour of its coat. I want everything, down to pounds, shillings, and pence, and when I have read it through I will quiz you on it. Witnesses are inclined to get the answers wrong when they make things up. And send out for a nice batch of meat pies, will you. These poor lads are half-starved, and I want them kept upright.”
THERE WAS NOTHING troubling about Mélisande’s appearance, beyond what was always troubling in such circumstances. Her loveliness was native and ordinary, and she carried her damage as if that were native and ordinary too. Cutter and Gideon found her hunched on a cot in a little garret room, plucking anxiously at the sleeves of her gown. It was of pale apricot satin, and no doubt it had been costly. It was now ripped at the bodice and marked with crazed spatters of blood. There were traces of blood, too, on the finely crafted blonde wig that rested on one of the bedposts.
She scrambled to her feet as soon as they entered. “Can you look at it quick?” she said. “I want it off me, but she said to leave it.”
Cutter shook his head. “You are a witness, not a Persian rug. Take it off if you want. We’ll wait outside.”
“Yeah, bless your heart, but I ain’t your sister. Besides, someone’s got to unlace me.”
The inspector gave a rumbling cough and turned to inspect a cabinet lined with figurines. “Bliss,” he said. “Help the young lady.”
Gideon thrust his hands behind his back, as if hiding a deformity. “I’m afraid I don’t … I’m not sure I …”
“Please.” Mélisande turned her back to him, keeping her arms wide. She gestured, her wrists stiffly flexed. “Please. The blood. I can’t.”
Gideon worked as delicately as he could at the puzzle of laces, wincing when he touched her skin. It was coarse from the cold, and the corset left marks that were almost bruises. He saw a fading bite mark, low on her neck. “Thank you,” she kept whispering. “Thank you, thank you.”
When she had been released from the gown, Mélisande twisted eagerly away and began rooting in a hamper. She seemed more at ease now, though she wore nothing underneath but bloomers and a filmy camisole. Her scalp was shaved clean, for the wigs. She looked slight, shorn of her colours, and as vulnerable as a china saucer.
Perhaps Cutter had formed the same impression. When she had pulled on a simple tea dress and scrubbed her face, the look he gave her was grave.
“Miss Mélisande, I must ask you something before we begin.”
“Mel,” she said. “It’s just Mel, when I ain’t working.”
“All right, then. Listen, Mel, I will make no trouble for you, but you must be straight with me. How old are you?”
She perched on the edge of the bed. “Ain’t like that,” she said. “I’m just scrawny, is all. They like that, some of them.”
The inspector looked away for a moment, passing a hand over his face. “You need a bit of feeding, right enough. Are you ready to start?”
Mel settled on the cot again, shuffling back and drawing up her knees. She examined her arms before closing them about her. “Ain’t got any smokes, do you?”
“Sorry,” said Cutter. “Will I ask someone?”
She shook her head, her narrow chin jutting. “They wouldn’t give you one. Not for me. That’s what happens when the punters like you. All right, go on, then.”
“Bliss.” Keeping his hand by his side, Cutter made a scribbling motion. Gideon backed away towards the washstand and drew out his notebook without a sound. “The man you were with—what time did he come in?”
“Late. He always comes late. Always came, I mean. Half twelve, maybe.”
“And he spent time outside first? In the salon?”
She shook her head, made a sour face. “Few minutes. One drink, to make it look right. He weren’t here for the company. Weren’t the sort.”
“Good,” the inspector said. “That is just the kind of thing I need to know. Anyone with him? Anyone speak to him?”
She made a scornful sound. “Talk to that? Face like an undertaker? Nah. Finished his drink and he gave me the look. Not cheeky, not like some punters. Not even, you know, like he wanted it. This look, all it said was now.”
“Good. Very good. I’ll tell you this, Mel, I wish I came across more witnesses like you. And then?”
“And then we come in the back room, the fancy one. The Bourbon Room, we’re supposed to call it.”
“And? Did anything change in him then? Was he different in private?”
She considered this doubtfully. “Why you asking me all this? About him, I mean. Ain’t you looked yet, at what happened to him? Wait, you don’t even know who he was, do you?”
Again, the inspector nodded. “You’re a sharp one, all right. I could tell you I came to you first so that you could get yourself off to bed, but you wouldn’t believe me, would you? You’ll have to trust me, Mel. Is that all right? Now, did he change?”
Mel clutched her knees. She stared straight ahead. “Not much. You ask me, it was like he didn’t want to be there. Like he wanted to get it over with. He talked a bit, I suppose, but only because he had to say what he wanted.”
Cutter’s eyes narrowed. He took a moment to weigh his next question. “Do you want to tell us about that, Mel? About what he wanted? You need not give us chapter and verse, but it may tell us something about him.”
She gave a bitter little laugh. “It might, yeah. It told me plenty.” Bending her head, she picked at a painted fingernail. “First time he come here, he brought this bag with him. Started unpacking it like he was away at the seaside. Took out this black gown first, and I’m looking at him, thinking, What am I supposed to be tonight? Another nun, is it? Only it’s for him, this gown. You know, like a priest or a schoolmaster. Had to keep my fan over my face, in case he saw me laughing. Then he got the whip out.”
Gideon looked up from his notebook. He kept very still.
Mel was staring at the wallpaper. Its pattern of blossoms was faded and peeling. She jerked her hand to her cheek, tipping her face away as she scrubbed at it. “I only let him do it the once. I think madam had a word with him after. But he still brought it every time. I’d show him my back, or my whatever, and he’d whip something else. You imagine that? I don’t know what it was, cause I never turned around, but he brought something with him so he could pretend. Fucking men.”
